Sentech has unveiled a portfolio of fixed wireless access solutions, BizNet Xpress, aimed at delivering carrier-class network services to South African businesses. It is expected to go commercial in January.
Speaking at the launch in Johannesburg, Sentech product development manager Georg Wenhold said the product is designed as a business-grade alternative to the traditional wired access media that most businesses use.
Wenhold explained that while BizNet serves the same functions as a wired network, such as access to corporate networks, interconnecting wired networks or connecting to the Internet, it also offers the flexibility and scalability of a wireless solution.
"The key to BizNet Xpress is in its logical simplicity. Working in a manner much like our broadcasting network, a central high-site sitting on the Sentech backbone connects to any number of antennae placed within the business campuses of client companies," said Wenhold.
"Using non-line of sight wireless capabilities, the high-site then provides access to 2Mbps. It can maintain this over physical ranges of up to 20km - more than enough to cover most cities."
Wenhold pointed out that the solution operates in the regulated 3.5GHz frequency band, the most commonly licensed band globally. It also meets the European Telecommunications Standards Institute's technical standards that are required by the majority of regulatory bodies that license the 3.5GHz band.
The solution, he added, uses techniques such as dynamic bandwidth allocation, high-order modulation schemes and error correction to maximise spectral efficiency, ensuring the real data rate delivered to customers is more than 80% of the "over-the-air" data rate.
Wenhold said the service is managed according to performance-based service level agreements, which guarantee the integrity of the service, as well as high-availability and security.
BizNet Xpress is offered to businesses as an access-only service, a Diginet replacement, or an integrated service that complements existing infrastructure by providing fail-over and/or redundancy.
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